Comet in Moominland

by Tove Jansson

  Unanimously. Well?’

  ‘Walking,’ suggested Moomintroll.

  ‘You are stupid,’ said the Snork. ‘We should fall down those great cracks, or sink into the mud. Proposal rejected.’

  ‘Propose something yourself then!’ said Moomintroll angrily.

  Then Snufkin lifted his head. ‘I know,’ he cried, ‘stilts!’

  ‘Stilts?’ said the Snork. ‘Proposal re…’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ cried Snufkin. ‘Listen. Don’t you remember how I used stilts in the land of the hot springs? In one stride I could get over practically anything. It’s quick too.’

  ‘But isn’t it awfully difficult to walk on stilts?’ asked the Snork maiden.

  ‘You can practice here on the beach,’ answered Snufkin. ‘Now it’s only a question of finding stilts.’

  So they all set off in different directions on a stilt-hunt, and it wasn’t a very easy hunt either.

  The Snork faced the problem most sensibly. He thought: Stilts are long poles. What are poles? They are tree-trunks. Where are there trees? In the wood… And so he went all the long hot way back to the edge of the wood, and got a pair of slender fir saplings for himself (there are no tree-spirits in the fir).

  Moomintroll and the Snork maiden hunted together. They talked about Moomin Valley and the cave, and soon completely forgot what they were hunting for.

  ‘My pappa has built a wonderful bridge,’ said Moomintroll, for about the third time, ‘but mostly he writes in a book called “Memoirs”. It’s all about what he has done in his life, and as soon as he does something else he writes that down too.’

  ‘Then surely he hasn’t got time to do very much?’ said the Snork maiden.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Moomintroll. ‘He makes sure of doing things now and again, even if it’s only to give himself something to write about.’

  ‘Tell me about that terrible flood you had,’ said the Snork maiden.

  ‘Oh yes, it was dreadful!’ said Moomintroll. ‘The water just rose and rose, until in the end mamma and Sniff and I were standing on a little mound with hardly room even for our tails.’

  ‘Phew!’ said the Snork maiden. ‘How high was the water?’

  ‘Five times higher than I am, or perhaps more,’ said Moomintroll. “About as high as that pole over there.’

  ‘Fancy!’ exclaimed the Snork maiden. And they wandered on thinking about the flood.

  After a while Moomintroll stopped and asked: ‘Didn’t I say “as high as that pole over there”?’

  ‘Yes, Why?’ asked the Snork maiden.

  ‘Because I’ve just remembered we’re looking for poles,’ Moomintroll answered. ‘We must go back and fetch it.’

  They trudged back along the beach till they found the pole again. It was very long and painted red and white.

  ‘It’s one of those posts they use at sea to mark rocks from one side,’ said Moomintroll, ‘and there’s the one for the other side.’

  They were in what had been a little bay before the sea had dried up, and the beach was littered with wreckage, piles of driftwood, birch-bark and seaweed. The Snork maiden

  found the knob off the top of a ship’s mast, but it was too big to take with them. Instead she picked up a bottle with a gilded stopper which had drifted all the way from Mexico. And soon afterwards they came across a very long plank which, broken in two, would do very well for the second pair of stilts.

  They set off back very pleased with themselves, and found the others already practising. Snufkin was demonstrating proudly on a fishing-rod and a hop-pole, and Sniff was trying to keep his balance on a broom-stick and the pole that still had their flag on the end of it.

  ‘You ought to have seen me a minute ago,’ he cried, and immediately fell smack on his nose.

  ‘You have to do it like this,’ said the Snork, climbing over a sandbank.’ It’s like wearing seven-league boots!’

  The Snork maiden whimpered with fright when they hoisted her up on her stilts. But after a time she was better than any of them, strutting about with such an air that you’d have thought she had worn them all her life.

  ‘I think that’s pretty good now,’ said Snufkin, when they had been balancing and staggering and falling for an hour or so. ‘Let’s start.’

  One after another, with their stilts under their arms, they began to climb down the difficult slippery path to the abyss.

  It was very depressing down there on the sea bottom. The seaweed, which looks so beautiful waving in green transparent water, was all flat and black, and the fish floundered pathetically in half-dried-up pools.

  The steam was like a smoke-screen above them, and through it the comet shone with a dim eerie light.

  ‘It’s almost the same as the land of the hot springs,’ said Snufkin.

  ‘It smells awful,’ said Sniff, wrinkling his nose. ‘Don’t forget I’m not to blame for this – I warned you…’

  ‘How goes it?’ cried Moomintroll to the Snork maiden through the steam.

  ‘Fine, thanks!’ came a faint answering cry.

  And on they stalked like long-legged insects, across the bottom of the sea, while the ground sloped gradually down. Here and there great dark green mountains rose; their tops had once been little islands where people had landed and children enjoyed themselves splashing about in the water.

  ‘Never again will I swim in deep water,’ said Sniff with a shiver. ‘Just to think that all this was underneath!’ He squinted down a dark cleft where there was still some water left, and no doubt a strange swarming underwater life.

  ‘But it’s beautiful although it’s so awful,’ said Snufkin. ‘And nobody has ever been here before us! What’s that over there?’

  ‘A treasure chest!’ screamed Sniff. ‘Oh! Let’s go and see!’

  ‘We can’t take it with us anyhow,’ said the Snork. ‘Let it be. I expect we shall find even more extraordinary things before we get through this place.’

  Now they were moving between jagged black rocks, and had to go very carefully for fear of the stilts getting caught. Suddenly in the gloom in front of them a great dark shape loomed up.

  ‘What’s that?’ gasped Moomintroll, stopping so suddenly that he nearly fell on his nose.

  ‘Perhaps it’s something that bites!’ said Sniff, anxiously.

  Slowly they advanced and peeped at the shape from behind a rock.

  ‘A ship!’ exclaimed the Snork. ‘A shipwreck!’

  How miserable she looked, poor ship! Her mast was broken, and barnacles covered her rotted hull. Her sails and rigging had long ago been swept away by the current, and her golden figurehead was cracked and discoloured.

  ‘Do you think there’s anybody on board?’ whispered the Snork maiden.

  ‘I expect they were rescued by lifeboat,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Come away! This is horrible.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Sniff, hopping down from his stilts, ‘I can see something gold – something shining…’

  ‘Remember what happened with the garnets and the giant lizard!’ called Snufkin. ‘Much better let it be!’

  But Sniff bent down and pulled a dagger with a golden hilt out of the sand. It was set with opals that shone like moonlight and the blade gleamed coldly. Sniff lifted up his find and shouted with excitement.

  ‘Oh, so beautiful!’ exclaimed the Snork maiden and completely lost her balance. She rocked backwards and forwards, and suddenly shot right over the side of the ship, and disappeared into the hold. Moomintroll let out one shriek and dashed to her rescue.

  His rush was slightly held up by the slipperiness of the deck, but he was soon peering down into the dark hold.

  ‘Are you there?’ he cried anxiously.

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ piped the Snork maiden.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Moomintroll, jumping down to her, and finding with a shock that the water came up to his middle, and that it had a horrible stagnant smell.

  ‘I’m all right,’ said the Snork maiden, ‘Only so f
rightened.’

  ‘Sniff is an absolute pest,’ said Moomintroll furiously. ‘Always wanting to run after everything that shines or glitters.’

  ‘Well, I do understand him,’ said the Snork maiden. ‘Ornaments are such fun, especially if they are made of gold and jewels. Don’t you think we might find some more treasure in here…?’

  ‘It’s so dark,’ said Moomintroll, ‘and there may be dangerous animals about.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ said the Snork maiden obediently. ‘Be a kind Moomintroll then and help me out of here.’

  So Moomintroll lifted her up onto the edge of the hatchway.

  The Snork maiden immediately took out her looking-glass to see if it was broken, but, thank goodness, the glass was whole and all the rubies were still on the back. But as she was titivating herself, a horrifying picture came into the looking-glass. There was the dark hold, and there was Moomintroll who was just climbing out – but behind in a dark corner there was something else. Something that moved. Something that crept slowly nearer to Moomintroll.

  The Snork maiden threw down the looking-glass and yelled with all her might: ‘Look out! There’s something behind you!’

  Moomintroll looked over his shoulder, and what he saw was a huge octopus, the most dangerous of deep-sea creatures, squirming slowly out of a corner towards him. He tried desperately to clamber up and reach the Snork maiden’s, paw, but he slid back on the slimy planks and

  splashed into the water again. By this time Snufkin and the others had come up on the deck to see what was happening, and they tried to poke the octopus with their stilts, but it didn’t have the slightest effect on him: he just crept relentlessly nearer to Moomintroll, his long tentacles already groping after his prey.

  Then the Snork maiden had an idea. She had often played with a looking-glass in the sun, making its reflection shine into her brother’s eyes to dazzle him. So now she picked up her ruby looking-glass and tried the same thing against the octopus, only shining the comet instead of the sun into his eyes. It was most successful. The octopus stopped at once, and while he was dazzled and didn’t know what to do, Moomintroll clambered up by his stilts and was hauled on deck by the others.

  They left that dreadful ship without wasting any time, and hardly drew breath before they were several sea-miles away from it.

  Then Moomintroll said to the Snork maiden: ‘You saved my life you know! And in such a clever way too! I shall ask Snufkin to write a poem in your honour, because I’m afraid I can’t write poetry myself.’

  The Snork maiden lowered her eyes and began to change colour with pleasure.

  ‘I was very happy to do it,’ she whispered. ‘I would save your life eight times a day if only I could.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t mind eight octopuses attacking me every day if I could only be saved from them by you,’ said Moomintroll gallantly.

  ‘If you’ve quite finished babbling to each other,’ said Sniff, ‘perhaps we could go on.’

  The sand had got more even now, and there were huge shells, with horns and spirals, in the most wonderful colours, such as purple, midnight-blue, and sea-green, strewn about all over the place.

  The Snork maiden wanted to stay and admire every one, and listen to the call of the sea which lay hidden inside them, but the Snork hurried her on.

  Enormous crabs were sidling in and out between the shells, telling each other how strange it was that the water had disappeared. They wondered who had taken it away and when it would come back. ‘Thank goodness I’m not a jelly-fish!’ said one. ‘Out of the water they are nothing but miserable little splodges, but we of course are equally happy wherever we are.’

  ‘I feel so sorry for anybody who wasn’t born a crab,’ said another. ‘It’s quite possible that this drying-up of the sea has been arranged especially so that we shall have more space to live in.’

  ‘What an excellent thought! Why not a world peopled entirely by crabs?’ exclaimed a third, waving his claws.

  ‘Self-satisfied creatures!’ muttered Snufkin. ‘Try dazzling them with the looking-glass, and see if they know what to do then.’

  The Snork maiden fixed the comet’s reflection again, and shone it in the crabs’ eyes. There was a terrible upheaval. Chattering with fright, the crabs rushed wildly in all directions, knocking each other over on the way, and buried their heads in pools of water.

  Moomintroll and the others had a good laugh and went on their way, and after a while Snufkin thought he would play a time. But not a sound could he get out of his mouth-organ; the steam had rusted it up.

  ‘Oh dear!’ he said sadly, ‘this is about the worst thing that could happen.’

  ‘Pappa will mend it for you when we get home,’ said Moomintroll. ‘He can mend anything, if only he gets around to it.’

  All about them stretched the strange sea landscape, which had been covered by millions of tons of water since the beginning of the world.

  ‘You know it’s rather solemn to be down here,’ said the Snork. ‘We must be pretty near the deepest part of the ocean by now.’

  But when they reached the biggest chasm of all they didn’t dare go down. The sides sloped steeply and the bottom was obscured in green gloom. Perhaps there was no bottom! Perhaps the biggest octopuses in the world lived down there, brooding in the slime; creatures that nobody had ever seen, far less imagined. But the Snork maiden gazed longingly at an enormous and beautiful shell that was poised on the very brink of the chasm. It was a lovely pale colour, only to be found in the depths of the sea where no light penetrates, and its dusky heart glowed temptingly. The shell sang softly to herself the age-old song of the sea.

  ‘Oh!’ sighed the Snork maiden. ‘I should like to live in that shell. I want to go inside and see who is whispering in there.’

  ‘It’s only the sea,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell. But you mustn’t go inside because it’s a labyrinth and you may never come out again.’

  So she was at last persuaded to go on, and they started to hurry, as dusk was falling, and they had not found anywhere to sleep. They could only see soft outlines of each other through the damp sea mist, and it was uncannily silent. There were none of the small sounds that liven up the evening on land: the pattering of small animal feet, leaves moving in the night breeze, the cry of a bird, of a stone dislodged by somebody’s foot.

  A fire would never draw on that damp ground, and they dared not sleep amongst the unknown dangers that might be lurking about, so in the end they decided to pitch camp on a high pointed rock, which they could just reach by their stilts. They had to keep watch, so Moomintroll took the first and decided to take the Snork maiden’s too, and while the others curled up tightly together and slept, he sat staring out over the desolate sea bottom. It was lit by the red glow of the comet, and shadows like black velvet lay across the sand.

  Moomintroll thought how frightened the earth must be feeling with that great ball of fire coming nearer and nearer to her. Then he thought about how much he loved everything; the forest and the sea, the rain and the wind, the sunshine, the grass and the moss, and how impossible it would be to live without them all, and this made him feel very, very sad. But after a while he stopped worrying.

  ‘Mamma will know what to do,’ he said to himself.

  CHAPTER 10

  Which is about a Hemulen’s stamp-collection, a swarm of grass-hoppers and a horrible tornado.

  WHEN Sniff woke up next day the first thing he said was: ‘It’s coming tomorrow!’

  ‘It’s so big!’ said the Snork maiden. ‘Nearly as big as a house.’

  All the steam had disappeared in the heat of the comet, and they could see right across to the other side where the bottom of the sea gradually sloped up to the beach again. They hadn’t far to go.

  ‘Trees!’ shouted Snufkin, pointing, and they all set off in a tremendous hurry to get there, without even waiting to put their stilts on.

  ‘Silver poplar
s!’ puffed Moomintroll as he stumped up the sandy beach. ‘Moomin Valley can’t be far off now.’

  The Snork began to whistle, and they were all so pleased to be on dry land again that they hugged each other in their excitement.

  Then they set off again for home.

  As they were going along they met a house-troll coming towards them on a bicycle. He was red in the face with heat (for house-trolls can never take off their fur coats). On the carrier he had two or three suitcases, and packages and parcels of all kinds dangled from the handlebars. On his back sat a baby house-troll in a bag.

  ‘Are you leaving?’ shouted Sniff.

  The house-troll climbed off his bicycle and said: ‘You may well ask, little animal. Everybody who lives in the neighbourhood of Moomin Valley is leaving. I don’t think there’s a single person who intends to stay there and wait for the comet.’

  ‘How is it you all think the comet is going to fall just there?’ asked the Snork.

  ‘Well, you might say, by word of beak,’ said the house-troll. ‘The Muskrat sent the information round through the birds, and it is quite obvious to any self-respecting house-troll that the comet will fall in Moomin Valley.’

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ said Moomintroll. ‘I believe our families are distantly related, and when I left home my mother told me to give you her kind regards if we happened to meet.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ said the house-troll hurriedly. ‘And the same to your poor mother. It may be the last time I shall be able to send greetings to her, because she and your father absolutely refuse to leave the valley. They said they had to wait until you and Sniff got back!’

  ‘Then we had better hurry,’ said Moomintroll in a worried voice. ‘If you go past a post office will you please send a telegram home saying that we are on the way and coming as fast as we can? Make it a greetings telegram please!’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ said the house-troll climbing on to his bicycle. ‘Well, goodbye, and may the Protector-of-all-House-and-Moomintrolls watch over you!’ And he peddled earnestly away.